1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the art of fastener assemblies. 2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
One prior art fastener assembly of the type to which the invention relates, a fastener assembly mold, and a tag attaching apparatus are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,103,666. The fasteners of that patent are stated to be preferably made of a plastically flexible material such as nylon. U.S. Pat. No. 3,444,597 discloses the best materials to be nylon, polypropylene, a polyethylene. It is relatively easy to sever a crossbar from its respective connector when the fastener assembly is composed of nylon, e.g., nylon-6. It has been found that in a fastener assembly composed of polypropylene, there exists the distinct disadvantage that it takes considerably more force to sever a crossbar from its respective connector than in the case of a nylon fastener assembly. Another tag attaching apparatus is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,650,452.
Even in the prior art fastener assemblies, in the as-molded condition, the crossbars are parallel to each other and perpendicular to the rod. The molded fastener assemblies are normally removed from the mold and stretched, although it has been proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,380,122 to stretch the fastener assembly while still in the mold. Unless care is taken in the handling and packaging of the freshly molded fastener assemblies, some or all of the crossbars can be deflected so as to be out of parallel with each other, and hence they are no longer perpendicular to the rod. If the deflected crossbars are allowed to remain in such a disoriented position they will take a relatively permanent set. Assuming that this permanent set condition exists in a fastener assembly, jamming problems can result when such a fastener assembly is used in a tag attaching apparatus. More specifically, when the crossbars, or some of them, are not perpendicular to the rod, the crossbars tend to misalign with the bore of the needle of the apparatus. When it is attempted to push the misaligned crossbar through the needle bore, the leading end of the misaligned crossbar can come into abutment with the end of the needle or other structure of the apparatus, causing jamming. The invention is directed to constructing the fastener assembly of a flexible material which tends to prevent the crossbars from becoming readily misaligned during handling and packaging and yet which does not exhibit the abovementioned disadvantage characteristic of polypropylene fastener assemblies of this type.